Recently, I installed vented plastic garage floor tiles like those in the picture above to improve the look of our garage. It's the same garage, but now it looks awesome.

Yesterday I received an email from Richardson Training, letting me know that they have completed their 2018 Selling Challenges Study. The data in the report, which you can download here, hasn't changed a great deal since 2017, but the report's new look is awesome. I reported on last year's report in detail here, but my conclusion for 2018 is the exact same conclusion I came to in 2017.

In 2017, the biggest challenge that companies faced was selling value and that continues into 2018. It's no surprise. Most sales organizations that Objective Management Group (OMG) evaluates appear to be quite challenged when it comes to selling value. For example, if you visit OMG's public stats page and scroll down to the Selling Value competency, you'll notice the following:

Only 35% of all salespeople have the competency as a strength.

All salespeople have an average score of only 56.

In order to effectively sell value, salespeople must also take a consultative approach and use a sales process that supports consultative selling and selling value. If you scroll from the Selling Value competency to the Consultative Selling competency and then the Sales Process competency, you will find that:

Only 22% of all salespeople have the Consultative competency as a strength

All salespeople have an average score of only 46 in the Consultative Competency

Only 26% of all salespeople have the Milestone-Centric Sales Process as a strength

All salespeople have an average score of only 49.

By contrast, if you scroll to the Presentation Approach competency, you will find that:

69% of all salespeople have Presentation Approach as a strength

All salespeople have an average score of 73.

So the question is, why does selling value continue to be such a problem for so many companies?

It takes me and my team at Kurlan & Associates about 8 months, training twice per month, to move salespeople to the point where they are confidently, effectively and efficiently selling value. That's 16 training sessions, reinforced by at least 32 coaching conversations from their sales managers over the same 8 months. And prior to those 8 months it takes some time to get sales managers to the point where they can handle the heavy lifting that coaching requires. So it brings me back to my opening.

Do most companies do the sales training equivalent of laying down the garage tiles by finding non-disruptive training so they can say they provided training? Or do they refurbish the entire garage - find training like Kurlan provides and make the decision to require their sales managers to become great sales coaches?

Only the refurbishing option will cause change.

Sales Managers won't find better training at turning them into great sales coaches than the training we provide at my annual Sales Leadership Intensive. I have 5 seats left for the training on May 22-23 outside of Boston. You can learn more here and register here.

About Dave

Best-Selling Author, Keynote Speaker and Sales Thought Leader. Dave Kurlan's Understanding the Sales Force Blog earned a medal for the Top Sales & Marketing Blog award for six consecutive years. This article earned a Bronze Medal for Top Sales Blog post in 2016, this one earned a Silver medal for 2017, and this article earned Silver for 2018. Read more about Dave.